August 19, 2010

Baltimore Beer Festival is coming in October

The first (and hopefully annual) Baltimore Beer Festival is set for noon-5 p.m. Oct. 17 at Canton Waterfront Park.

The festival, which caps the second Baltimore Beer Week, will showcase local, regional and national beers from brewers such as Saranac, Heavy Seas, Victory and Harpoon. Alongside the big boys will be the home brewers, according to festival organizer Torbin Green, who runs the events promotions company Smalltimore.

"You're going to be able to pair up with the corporate brewers but also sample home brews," Green said. "It's an interesting twist." ...

General admission tickets, which are $35 in advance and $40 at the gate, include unlimited four-ounce tastings. You can also spring for VIP tickets, which cost $55 and give you access to your own tent and food vouchers.

Donegal-Xpress and a couple other bands will perform live, and a big screen TV will be showing the Ravens game. The festival's site, baltimorebeerfestival.com, is under construction but should be up in the coming weeks, Green said.

Hmm, looked pretty enticing until I saw it was during the Ravens game... with only 4 oz cups, it'll be hard to sit back and watch the game... most of the time at these things is wandering around to find your next sample and then waiting in line for the next beer.

The Baltimore Marathon is the the day before this Beer festival. Finding an open festival space most Sat's in the Balto metro area is pretty tough given the number of ethic festivals the city holds in the Parks and around the stadiums. Especially so in Fall/Spring when the weather is generally nice. I am sure the organizers were just looking for a date when the Ravens were out of town to draw a crowd. Matbe they were thinking folks would watch the game on the square and walk down at halftime or after?

Beer Week it is! The previous Sat. is BAM's Octoberfest and the day before is the Chesapeake Real Ale Challenge at Pratt St Ale House. So Sunday it is. If you can't drink from noon to five on a sunday and make it to work on Monday go to one of the other events or call in sick.

Part of the rationale for the Baltimore Beer Festival was for an opportunity for excellent breweries that don't happen to be in Maryland (for example: Dogfish Head, Victory, Saranac. Leinenkugel's, Samuel Adams, and others--many of whom are Beer Week sponsors) to showcase their stuff at a Baltimore Beer Week Festival. The BAM Oktoberfest in Timonium on Oct. 9th is, by design, an event showcasing Maryland breweries (Brewers Assn. of Maryland--duh!), and the excellent Chesapeake Real Ale Festival is focused exclusively on cask-conditioned "real ale". We came close to having a similar festival to close out the inaugural Baltimore Beer Week in 2009, but arrangements fell apart.

As one of the founders of BBW, I'm rather relieved to have Mr. Green, Smalltimore, and this festival to help close out Baltimore Beer Week 2010. It expands the scope of BBW beyond the immediate central Maryland region, on top of the efforts by many fine bars featuring fine beers from across the nation and globe.

no offense, but though i appreciate them sponsoring beer week, Leinenkugel's is far from an excellent brewery as far as beer taste goes. also, i'm pretty sure they're going to have a big projection tv showing the game during this event. fingers crossed no dead fish/sewage stank that day! cheers!

the festival runs until 5 PM. if you can't find enough to eat in canton to sober you up in time for work on monday, then beer is not your problem my friend. i've seen plenty of people in pretty rough shape later in the day at mother's purple patio and they made it to work just fine on monday.

Technically, there's no real mechanism in place to prevent Anheuser-Busch or Stella Artois from steeping up and signing on as a mega-sponsor of Baltimore Beer Week...... other than, say, the gentle discretion of the BBW committee. (But I think AB or the like are sharp enough to recognize that something like BBW is just "not their scene".......)

The Ravens game will be played on a big screen and sipping on beers under the blink of the Natty Boh sign sounds great to me. With over 25 different breweries and 60 beers, there will be a minimum wait for your next beer. As far as having it on a Sunday, you have your notice to call out work two months in advance.

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About Erik Maza

Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "simulated sex with a potted palm tree." Before The Sun, he was a reporter at the Miami New Times. He's also written for Miami magazine, the Orlando Sentinel, the Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Gainesville Sun. Got tips? Gripes? Pitches? He's reachable at erik.maza@baltsun.com. Click here to keep up with the dumb music he's listening to.

Midnight Sun covers Baltimore music, live entertainment, and nightlife news. On the blog, you'll find, among other things, concert announcements, breaking news, bars closings and openings, up-to-date coverage of crime in nightlife, new music, round-the-clock coverage of Virgin Mobile FreeFest, handy guides on bars staying open past 2 a.m. on New Year's Eve and those that carry Natty Boh on draft. Recurring features include seven-day nightlife guides, Concert News, guest reviews of bars and concerts, Wednesday Corkboard, and photo galleries, as well as reader-submitted photos. Thanks for reading.